Hi all, so I recently moved to a town in the north west, very low income area, the town is as you’d expect a sea of terrace houses that open to the street with concrete yards, some of the nicer parts have gardens but for the most part that’s not the case. There are also some newer estates.
Anyway I work for a charity, we support families where a parent or sibling has passed away. As part of my job I’ve seen a lot of council houses, in this area it’s mostly the terraces which are small or post war builds which are bigger but these tend to be “rougher” areas to live.
Lately I’ve been working with a family, mums been offered a council house and today I went with her to just go over a list of what she needs to do to get out of temporary accommodation asap and into it. I’ll be honest I’m a little stunned at the quality, it’s a 3 bed terrace, small front garden, mid size back garden (more than most around here), large kitchen, bay window. Council have fitted a new kitchen and bathroom and re-plastered the whole house.
It’s also in a “nicer” area. For the amount this place would sell for, you could probably buy 2 cheaper 3 bed terraces and considering the shortage of council housing stock I’m surprised that hasn’t happened! She will be paying about a little Over half what it would go for on the rental market.
Now I know this is the exception rather than the norm but AIBU to be surprised councils are holding onto higher value properties like this rather than selling them and either getting 2 houses (so 2 families can be housed) or putting the profit into the local area?
I am aware this is far from the norm but after talking to colleagues the council seems to have several properties in this little area, this mum has also got very lucky with her housing situation as she’s only been in temporary accommodation for a couple of months.